Middle East & Africa

Explainer style post.

Washington ignores Sisi’s human rights abuses in exchange for his enforcement of Gaza’s blockade.

New Delhi’s long-standing balancing act between Israel and the Palestinians faces its toughest test yet.

Spillover effects could disrupt gas production and major shipping chokepoints.

Hubris and toxic politics fueled a mistaken belief in containment.

The largest foreign donor to the Palestinian territories is split in its support.

Regional expert Khaled Elgindy on the political future of the Palestinian people.

Morocco’s friendly ties with Israel are facing a backlash from some pro-Palestinian citizens as Sudan renews ties with Iran.

The crisis may expose the limits of Beijing’s reach in the Middle East.

Gaza wasn’t always the hot spot it is today.

Hamas is not the only group vying to lead the Palestinians—or the fight against Israel.

Why Aaron David Miller still believes in a Middle East peace process.

Israel’s goals in its current war may be too expansive to achieve.

U.S. support for Israel’s incursion could enable mass atrocities.

The starting point for the new Middle East will be an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, not an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh.

If the Lebanese group does more than fire a few missiles in solidarity, it would dramatically escalate the current conflict.

The Israeli leader sought to sideline the Palestinians while wooing the Arab states. Now he faces a bloody backlash.

A possible two-front war in the Middle East will have knock-on effects for Europe.

A broader conflict involving Iran could lead to attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz—disrupting the global energy market.

Dozens of top U.S. national security posts sit empty amid crisis.

An all-out effort is again underway to maintain an unsustainable regional status quo.

Tehran has been encouraging an escalation like this for months.

The situation is chaotic, and the fighting is ongoing. But several observations already stand out.

Israel-Palestine sees its bloodiest day of fighting in decades as Netanyahu declares war.

Test yourself on the week of Sept. 30: Slovakia votes, the EU announces an aid package, and police crack down in Iran.

International finance needs a new playbook for crisis as the bank convenes for its annual meetings.

U.S. and Iranian navies lock horns in key trade route.

Rich-world advocates are pushing outlandish green scenarios that will keep Africans poor.

Drones made the president’s son-in-law a household name. His techno-nationalism and popular appeal could make him the country’s next leader.

Riyadh wants big concessions from Washington in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel. Biden should ask for big concessions in return.

As coups spread across the region, insecurity is growing—and international military involvement could make it worse.

Thirty years of the peace process has left us with less land and fewer rights.

“Pick your calamity,” said one former top U.S. diplomat.

Libyan authorities invited journalists to cover the floods. Their window of welcome quickly closed.

While Washington sits idly by, the region is on the brink of falling into Tehran’s orbit.

Austin touts U.S. as best alternative to Russia and China during visit.

Legislation authorizing the 2003 war is still on the books—and alarmingly open-ended.

Today, there are more terror groups in existence, in more countries around the world, and with more territory under their control than ever before.

As the country marks 63 years of independence, insecurity and corruption continue to drive highly educated Nigerians to live and work abroad.

One year after an uprising over women’s rights, the government has passed a harsh new hijab law.

Libyans, among others, are sick of the Russian mercenaries.

A sweeping new history of the country focuses primarily on elites, rather than the grassroots movements that overturned apartheid.

Poor global and domestic governance made a foreseeable and preventable disaster in Derna a catastrophe.

Netanyahu wants a normalization deal with the Saudis, but his hard-right coalition partners will undermine his plans.

The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.

Ahead of a presidential election, debate in Buenos Aires reveals the mounting challenges of multi-alignment.

NATO, China, Russia, and regional powers all want closer ties to a stable West African nation with crucial energy supplies and a strategically valuable location.

Washington must lean on Abu Dhabi to halt its support for Hemeti’s RSF.

Beijing’s global maritime operations double as intelligence-gathering outposts.

Another crackdown is targeting Black Africans seeking to enter the EU.

The supreme leader learned what not to do from the Shah.

Unusually virulent weather and poor infrastructure have brought hell to eastern Libya.

Fear of Chinese influence must not take precedence over protecting democracy.

Test yourself on the week of Sept. 9: An earthquake devastates Morocco, Kim Jong Un leaves Pyongyang for a key summit, and a French official is arrested abroad.

As another multilateral forum issued a watered-down statement, Russia and North Korea met to deepen military ties.

An outbreak of Arab-Kurdish violence threatens to upset the delicate balance that kept the Islamic State and other U.S. adversaries at bay.

The region’s four major countries have all forfeited Washington’s trust.

Riyadh’s forces are killing defenseless Ethiopian migrants at its border, and Washington and its allies don’t seem to care.

And what it means for future negotiators.

How the extended Bongo family ousted a president but maintained its control of the country.

Test yourself on the week of Sept. 2: A new development in Guatemala’s election, China’s charm offensive, and African leaders’ call to the international community.

A parliamentary inquiry into an alleged 2012 murder by British soldiers is causing a diplomatic crisis for the U.K. government.

The Turkish leader is in a weak position to dictate the terms of what the new normal with Syria will be.

The desert kingdom’s rebranding project goes way beyond sportswashing. But it’s all a little too contrived.

The factors that have contributed to instability in the region.

Critics say petrodollars are wrecking the beautiful game—in a way that rubles, euros, and baht never quite did.

Paris is complicit in the lack of social and democratic progress that prompted the coup.

The bloc’s new members include countries New Delhi is keen to expand ties with.

Foreign funds can produce stronger and less accountable militaries.

By falsely labeling all critics as Muslim Brotherhood shills, the Egyptian president shows how scared he really is.

The president’s son is a loose cannon—and he’s angling for his father’s job.

There’s a dangerous flip side to Saudi Arabia’s potential new diplomatic deal.

New additions to the bloc from Africa are linked by their opposition to a Western-dominated financial system.

But it is a warning shot for the West to end its strategic slumber in the global south.

Calls grow for Washington to reset its Africa strategy, but old habits die hard.

Rapid population growth is about to hit the countries whose economies and climates are least equipped to handle it.

A diplomatic deadlock over a 50-year-old pipeline agreement is wreaking havoc in the region—and beyond.

Moscow relishes being a player in Africa, but committing to another foreign war wouldn’t serve its interests.

In death, Yevgeny Prigozhin got a taste of his own messaging medicine.

Benjamin Netanyahu has long warned of the perils of a nuclear Middle East. Now he seems willing to allow Saudi nukes in exchange for normalization.

Inside the U.S.-led training program which aims to finally eradicate al-Shabab.

Despite Russia’s decline and China’s economic woes, the idea of a nondollarized economy has strong appeal across the continent.

Amid a stalemate at the border, it’s clear that Xi Jinping still has the upper hand.

Despite revisionist claims, documents show the critical U.S. role in Mosaddeq’s fall.

Harare has Africa’s largest lithium reserves and Beijing is poised to benefit, despite an export ban.

Tehran has shifted to using carrots in the region—and reserving sticks for the United States and Israel.

But the Biden administration’s latest negotiations with Tehran are still the best option available.

Ghost voyages and dark port calls by Russian and Iranian vessels are enabling both countries to circumvent Western sanctions and thrive in a shadow economy.

Is it a turning point for geopolitics in Africa?

“Japa” contains both the hope and the pain of wanting to leave one’s country behind for better opportunities.

Low vaccination coverage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo raises the risk of diseases spreading and adapting undetected.

The coup leader-turned-president promised Egyptians prosperity, but the country is flat broke.

Despite Moscow’s best attempts at controlling the narrative, there exists a power vacuum in the region—and a need to rethink alliances.

ECOWAS has threatened armed intervention but a lack of popular support in Nigeria and bellicose rhetoric from Mali and Burkina Faso could make the bloc think twice.

Worldcoin trades cryptocurrency for eyeball scans, creating a global ID database and scaring the willies out of privacy experts.

The crisis has created a truly geopolitical moment for intra-African politics.

The mercenary group is a product of the system Putin built, and he can’t dismantle it without undermining Moscow’s global influence.

Nigeria has understandable security concerns, but using force to dislodge Niger’s junta could spark a refugee crisis and regional war.

Ambitious leaders in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are restructuring national identity to solidify their rule.

Turkey has turned its back on the Islamist group, eliminating one of its last safe havens.